


Madrigal for Two Voices

by Tammany



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AO3 1 Million, Case Fic, Friendship, Gen, Pre-Mycroft Holmes/Greg Lestrade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-16
Updated: 2014-02-16
Packaged: 2018-01-12 15:56:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1190970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ok, this is first and foremost an experiment in winding two distinct plot elements around each other. There's a case fic, and there's Sherlock and Lestrade mincing around issues of Mystrade, but also elements of Sherlock's past and his friendship with Greg. It's post CAM/Vows. It's first draft, barring some racing up and down the story to ensure plot hooks were in rough alignment. </p><p>I have nothing but respect for the SCA, for fighters--female and otherwise--for the bardic folks, for cosplayers, etc. This is just this mystery thing that developed as I improvised. Heck, the murderer turned out to be my favorite original character of the lot fo them. </p><p>The Bunhill Fields Burial Ground is real. So is the HAC playing field, which does rent out for events, though not, so far as I know, any SCA events. The UCSB English Broadside Ballad Archive is real, and a dear friend actually did some of the work in it many years ago. Go Gauchos!</p><p>And with luck I am slipping this in just under the wire for a second AO3 1 Million entry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Madrigal for Two Voices

It was a Monday in July…a Monday that had started with the discovery of a murder. Of course, for Lestrade that was normal…and Sherlock did everything possible to make it normal for himself, too. Well, Lestrade thought, not everything possible. So far he wasn’t salting London with corpses just to provide cases. But he’d been thrilled to hear there was any kind of case. One in which the corpse had been found in an ancient burial ground long since turned into an urban park—a park complete with headstones and memorials and maps of the graves? Perfect, from Sherlock’s point of view.

Lestrade was less convinced. But, then, it was midsummer, too hot, and he had other things on his mind.

“Buy you a pint?” Lestrade didn’t meet Sherlock’s eye. Of course, Sherlock didn’t meet his, either. Both men stood a few yards back from the crime site, hands shoved in the pockets of their trousers, faking a level of interest in the proceedings that exceeded their actual fascination by light years. Still, it gave them something to look at, which was a social convenience. The body lay sprawled over two adjoining graves in the Bunhill Fields Burial ground, but both Sherlock and Lestrade had already performed their own examinations of the site, and all they were watching now was the ritual forensics detail at work.

“Yeah, sure,” Sherlock said. “Pint sounds good. Artillery Arms?”

“Yeah, why not? Good place, close by. Sure.” Lestrade turned and shouted to Donovan, “I’m off for the day, Sally.  Call me if you find anything new?”

“Yeah, okay,” she shouted back, then loped across the space from the site to Lestrade.  “You count a couple printed-out pages of a college project as new?”

“Where’d you find it?”

“Under the vic. Looks like he fell on it.”

“Any sign it has anything to do with the case?”

“Not. Looks more like litter or something. Some kind of history project. Scripture, maybe? Looks like that. King James—Psalms or something.”

“Yeah, well. Not new, then. Maybe something to do with whatever happened across the way at the HAC grounds? They’re cleaning up after something there. It would be an easy walk across the street for someone coming out of that over the weekend. Or, hell, the wind blew it. It’s not that far.”

“Likely enough. Some poetry thing, that’s all I know.”

“Yeah, well. Make sure it’s bagged, but it doesn’t sound promising.  So—I’m off. Call, right?”

“Cheerio!”

“Well,” Lestrade said. “That’s that. Ready?”

Sherlock nodded, and they turned, heading toward the pub in an easy amble.

“What’s the occasion?” Sherlock asked.

“No occasion. Thought we could talk.”

Sherlock shot Lestrade a wary glance. “An occasion in its own right. What have I done wrong, now? Offended Donovan? Insulted your new forensics expert—who makes Anderson look competent, more’s the pity? I promise, I’ve left evidence in place, and the most addictive substance I’ve even considered in the past week is the pint you’re pushing.”

Lestrade shook his head. “Nah, nah. You’ve done nothing wrong, Sherlock. Been so good lately I’ve been worried about you, if you want to know the truth.”

Sherlock almost tripped on an invisible crack in the sidewalk, and came to a full stop, blinking in bewilderment. “I… Are you sure?”

Lestrade laughed and turned back to him, crossing his arms over his chest and considering the younger man. “Yeah, I’m sure. What, it’s a surprise to you? Figured you had to be working at it to be so easy to work with.”

Sherlock frowned. “I have been. What difference is that supposed to make? It’s never done me any good before.”

Lestrade crowed with laughter. “You’re having me on, yeah?” He studied Sherlock’s stunned expression, and chuckled more softly. “Hell. You’re not. Surprise, sunshine, it looks like it’s finally beginning to take. Really, you’ve been doing great.”

Sherlock swallowed and looked away, flustered. He retreated frantically into snappish sarcasm. “Wonderful. And when I’ve been named ‘Mr. Congeniality’ do I get complete access to all your cases?” He swept past Lestrade, long legs moving double time, head tucked down, pretending indifference.

Behind him Lestrade grinned fondly, though with a pensive reserve. He studied Sherlock’s retreating back as he followed behind. The younger man was so very uncomfortable, he thought. A Holmes trait, perhaps, this reaction, that approached physical pain? He added the theory to the rather extensive collection he’d been developing over the past months…no, over years.

The Artillery Arms was a gorgeous, upscale, classic old Victorian pub. Lestrade and Sherlock grabbed a two-person table near the exit onto Bunhill Row, with a view of the burial ground, complete with tombstones. Lestrade figured the view alone ought to keep Sherlock chipper, and the pint of Deuchar’s IPA could only help. He set the two pint glasses down, and slipped into his chair.

“It’s an interesting case,” Sherlock said, thoughtfully, as he took his first long sip. His eyes gazed out at the burial ground beyond. “Murder with intent, not your common, garden variety thug job. What do you think about the weapon? Poniard?”

“I think people don’t use poniards in this day and age, Sherlock. Stick to ‘long, pointy knife.’ Those we still have plenty of. Maybe a Scottish dirk? Plenty of folks who go in for the whole Celtic thing keep kilts and tartans and that kind of thing.”

“But not double-edged,” Sherlock argued. “This was definitely a double-edged blade. The width and depth of the wound are consistent with a French poniard of the Renaissance.”

“Weapons buff? Reproduction blade?”

Sherlock nodded, warily. “Could be.” He took another drink, then said, with the caution of a man expecting to be ambushed, “But you didn’t bring me here to discuss the case, did you?”

Lestrade grimaced. “Thought I’d save conjecture until we’ve IDed the body and taken a look at the forensics report, yeah. Anything we do before that’s just guessing.”

“Anything _you_ do before that’s just guessing,” Sherlock corrected him, tartly.

“Arse. You really do try to put the wind up me.”

Sherlock smirked. “It passes the time.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Lestrade frowned into his ale. “Not like I’m not used to it.”

Sherlock huffed. “Out with it. What _did_ you drag me here for?”

“Nothing. Fool’s errand, that’s all. Waste of time….well, going out for a pint’s never a waste of time, but you get my meaning.”

Sherlock was twitching, now, strung tight. “Oh? Oh! You’ve actually come for _personal_ advice.  To _me?_ Good God, Grant, what were you thinking?”

“Besides that you’re too smart to keep forgetting my name?”

 “I might remember your name better if it was the only one you ever used.”

“I’m a copper,” Lestrade growled back, voice warning Sherlock that he’d be in very hot water if he baited Lestrade in any way that came closer to Lestrade’s more secret undercover work. “Sometimes…” He glared. “ _You_ know…”

Sherlock grinned a sharp and not too kindly grin. “Oddly enough I do, Gaston.”

“Greg.”

“Greg, then.” Blue eyes sparkled with a wicked glee. “You’ll have to keep reminding me. Such a forgettable name, after all. Now…why did you come to me, of all people… Oh.” He blinked, sudden understanding shocking him into silence.

Lestrade shrugged. “It’s not like I know anyone else with a personal understanding of your brother,” he said. “I can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong. The longer we work together the colder he gets…the harder I work at it, the less he reciprocates. At the rate things are going, I’m going to have to request a transfer soon, just to keep from getting frostbite every time we have a meeting.” He grimaced. “What kills me is, I kind of liked him. At least at the start. Thought we made a good team.”

Sherlock frowned, clearly puzzled. “Clarify.”

Lestrade shrugged. “How?”

“Explain why you ever thought you were…what was it? A good team?”

Lestrade gave an exasperated huff. “What’s so hard about that?”

“I didn’t say it was hard. I asked for clarification. For what reasons did you think you and Mycroft made a good team? Please express yourself clearly. Anything less and I may not be able to help you.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Sherlock!” Lestrade huffed, and committed himself to his pint for a few minutes, brooding. Finally, he said, “All right. All right. He used to make these little, dry jokes, like he thought no one would notice. And then he’d light up when I tossed some response back—upped the stakes, made another joke, or at least tossed in a pun or something. Anything to let him know I caught it, y’know? And we seemed to balance each other: what he planned, I could check. What I planned, he could nitpick for flaws. And it just—it felt good, you know? Like when we’re working a case and it’s all coming together, and me and the team are managing to feed you what you need and you’re remembering that we’ve got to make a case of it in court someday and keeping track of procedure, and even Donovan half-likes you. You know: when it’s all in sync, right? And—I don’t’ know. Sherlock, I’d get there and he’d say hello, and we’d even talk a bit before we got down to work. ‘How’s the day?’ ‘Heard from Sherlock or is he still undercover in Ruritania?’ ‘Your ex still giving you trouble over the house repairs, or has her lawyer stopped pushing you?’ Even dumb things. ‘Nice weather—oh, I know, I can’t believe it, I had to remove my weskit during a break in my session with Angela Merkel—Yeah, me, I had to dump the jacket at the crime site today, I was sweltering.’ Or we’d be talking about a situation coming up, and he’d remember something he’d seen before that was like it, and tell me about it, and I’d tell him about something like that, and we’d have to remember where we’d gone off track afterward to get back on topic. Just—you know. We worked well together.”

Sherlock’s frown was very distinct—not his common irritation, or his less frequent but far from unusual rounds of pettish fury. He frowned at Lestrade with the mute confusion of someone who’s just been told that donkeys fly, the Thames flows backward, or that Morgan le Fay is advertising for a lab assistant and can be contacted through Bart’s human resources department. “You’re sure of this?”

“Yeah. Not exactly rocket science, Sherlock.”

“You and Mycroft. Talking. Joking. Mycroft? You? Really?”

Lestrade gave a frustrated growl. “You don’t have to make it sound so outrageous. Sod all, Sherlock! You make it sound like I was—I don’t know. Some kind of grub or something and your brother wouldn’t talk to me any more than I’d carry on a conversation with maggots.”

“Exactly,” Sherlock said. “Or, more accurately, goldfish. Mycroft doesn’t do ‘team-player,’ Lestrade, and he absolutely doesn’t do conversation over case analysis or long-term security planning. Oh, perhaps with that aide of his. She’s so far inside Mycroft’s security lines I’m not sure he counts her as fully independent, though: I think he’s simply decided that she’s a peripheral accessory that’s Bluetooth and Blackberry enabled. Anthea, yes. Me…on occasion, though it’s never entirely comfortable on either side. In both cases there are exonerating factors that allow him to risk…intimacy. Factors that do not apply in your case.”

“Such as?”

Sherlock shook his head. “We don’t arrive with complications.”

“I’ll believe that when beer’s free, sunshine. You’re an entire city of complicating factors all on your own.”

“Most of which don’t apply to Mycroft in the first place, or can be ignored, or that Mycroft’s had a lifetime to adapt to. I’m his brother.”

“If that’s not a complicating factor, I don’t know what is, mate,” Lestrade pointed out, sardonically.

“Yes, but I’m a complication he finds familiar and occasionally useful.”

“Yeah, well, I thought he and I were getting reasonably familiar—and I promise, even I’m occasionally useful.”

“Not in a way I’d expect to matter to Mycroft,” Sherlock said, dismissing Lestrade’s potential with a grand sweep of one hand. “And you say he’s changed?”

“Yeah.”

“Clarify.”

This time Lestrade just sighed, and gave it his best shot. “It’s like every time I go, he’s a bit less…I don’t know. A bit more…. No more jokes. Barely says hello. Doesn’t meet my eye any more—it’s like his eyes are locked on the screen of his laptop. Never meets me anywhere but his office anymore, if he can help it, and stays behind his desk. And no matter what I do, it just gets worse. At first I tried to jolly him out, you know? More jokes? Told him stories that occurred to me. I thought he was just off, you know? Then I thought maybe I’d offended him. Made him uncomfortable. Pulled back, put on my professional face. Only he just got worse. And the room—when I’m there it almost makes my skin creep. It’s like when you’re waiting for a fight to start, or something. Tense, you know?”

“No. I don’t know,” Sherlock said. “You’re sure of this?”

“Dammit, Sherlock, it’s been working up for months. Yes, I’m sure.”

“Any clear point where the change started?”

Lestrade shrugged helplessly. “Someone like you might be able to pin it down. Me, I just know it’s been like watching tide creep out. You can’t say when it turns, but you can see the beach after a while and you know it did.”

Sherlock met his eyes. “You realize it may simply be more sensible to withdraw, and suggest my brother work with another MI5 agent. Or that you should work with another MI6 liaison.”

“I thought of that,” Lestrade said, sighing. “But….” he spread his hands, helplessly. “I like the work. I think we were damned good at it. And…Sherlock I like him. I’m not kidding. We were shaping up into a hell of a team. Look, will you at least think about it?”

“Oh, I will indeed think about it,” Sherlock said, grimly. “Lestrade, I need another pint.”

“What is this, a two-pint problem?”

“It may even be a three-pint problem.”

“Consider me warned,” the DI said, and went to collect two more pints.

He spent the next two hours drinking, eavesdropping on conversations in the pub, and watching Sherlock think. Yes, watching Sherlock think was slightly more exciting than watching most people think—an improvement on watching grass grow. Between the occasional faces he made and the odd gestures as he manipulated elements within his Mind Palace, he offered an unsettling spectacle….though it did seem creepy watching him. If it hadn’t been obvious he was actually both disturbed and engaged by the problem Lestrade would  have been tempted to just tell him to quit, and gone on his way. As it was, he was fairly sure there would be no stopping his friend until he’d reached a conclusion he could at least accept on a temporary basis.

It was a nice pub, he thought, as he drank and waited. Comfortable. Relaxed. The kind of place he’d come regularly if he lived nearby.

“Event went well this weekend,” one customer said to one of the barkeeps, as she collected a half-pint of something dark from the bar. “Weather was good, people turned out.”

“Aye, they did,” the barkeep said, and winked. “Much revelry was to be seen…over at the HAC grounds and here, too.”

She smiled. “Well, it’s convenient here, ennit?”

“’Tis indeed,” he said, and then added, “and you lot liven the place up. Always a pleasure to have you through.”

“We do cause talk, don’t we?” she said. “Local color.  Eh, his high and mightiness is waving for me. Best I go see the music master before he starts whining. Ta!” She peeled away from the bar and headed toward a booth at the far end of the pub, where a short, stout man in an arty, hippy sort of shirt was waiting for her.

“Fuckin’ freaks, if you ask me,” the second barkeep said to the first. “Place is weird when they come in here.”

The first barkeep smacked the second with a damp bar-rag. “Freak yourself, Jay. Better them than the Arsenal fans on game day, yeah? Last time Arsenal lost we had to call the cops in before they started a sodding riot. Give me her lot any day.”

“Silly buggers,” the second said. “Buncha poncy beggars.”

“Leave it, y’ twat,” the first grumbled, and turned his attention to a customer asking for a carafe of white zinfandel.

Sherlock was still in his Mind Palace. He was also still apparently pretty perturbed at what he was finding there. He frowned, muttered, flicked invisible images back and forth.

“Your companion all right?” a customer asked from a neighboring table.

“Yeah. He’s got a…condition,” Lestrade said. “Harmless. Just a bit weird. You get used to it.”

The man laughed. “Not like we don’t get plenty of weirdos around here, mate. Not a problem.” He returned to his beer.

The phone in Lestrade’s pocket vibrated. He slipped it out, glanced at the caller ID, and answered. “Hey, Sally. News?”

“Not much. We’re closing up, now. Body’s bagged and headed for the morgue. I’m leaving a small team to comb the grounds, but the main site’s been searched, bagged, tagged, and cleared. Pulling down the yellow tape before I go: no point keeping it closed off now.”

“Yeah, fine. Any new information?”

“Not till the pathologist’s had a look. It’s going over to the Bart’s morgue. If Hooper’s on duty she may think to get back to you in person. Oh—we’ve got two witnesses who say there was some kind of Ren Faire or something over at the HAC grounds over the weekend: reenactors or something. Classes in calligraphy, freaky folk music, nutters in princess clothes, big buffet dinner. Apparently a few of them drifted on over to the burial grounds, too. Maybe we got some kind of period-crazy nut with a dagger killed someone ordinary?”

Lestrade frowned. “Yeah, sure, but why? And if they’re all dressed up in costume they’d kind of stand out, wouldn’t they? ‘S not like it’s camo here in downtown London, is it? Would you go stabbing someone in a popular park dressed in tights and a Robin Hood hat with a feather in?”

“Yeah, but at least if you’re one of those creeps you’ve got reason for walking around with a dagger, Lestrade. Not like it’s a common accessory.”

“Yeah, okay, I’ll give you that. Okay, follow up on it. But don’t be surprised if it doesn’t pay off. Feels a bit off to me.”

“It is off,” Sherlock said without coming fully out of his Mind Palace trance. “A serious reenactor wouldn’t be carrying a real poniard to a major urban event planned among other things as good publicity and a draw for possible recruits. Or not without being quite well peace-tied.”

“What?”

“Go ask the woman on the far side of the room, with the man with the shirt and hat. I’m thinking.” Sherlock faded back into deep trance.

Lestrade grimaced, then looked across the pub. The woman from earlier was still there, now with three other people—the chubby man with the shirt and hat, a tall, thin man who could have been another Holmes if you went by build alone, and a short, busty woman in a square-necked shirt and oddly Victorian jacket over cargo pants tucked into imposing lace-up boots with wide leather bands running up and down the outer calf, straps looping around the ankles, and bold steel decorative badges stamped with ornate geometric patterns. Her outfit wavered between casual geek-wear and something… what? Gothy? Lestrade frowned, trying to place the fashion, but failed in the end. It was odd, decorated with what looked like clock gears and odd bits of metal all over the jacket.

He got up, picked up his pint, and wandered over, fishing his warrant card from his pocket—with great relief that Sherlock hadn’t filched it for once. He smiled as apologetically as he could, and presented the card in as casual a manner as he could, saying as he did so, “Don’t panic, not here to hassle you. DI Lestrade, violent crimes. Was working a case over in the cemetery across the way earlier. Someone suggested you might know something about period reenactors? I need some information, if you can help.”

The four examined him warily—or three did. The fourth, the woman with the gears on her jacket, met his eyes with amused challenge. “Willing to pick up a round?”

He grinned back at her. “Not supposed to have to bribe informants, am I?”

“Come on, you lot pay informants all the time. And it’s not a bribe—just a sweetener. And you’re off duty or you wouldn’t have that pint in your fist,” she said, laughing. “Come on, sweetheart—a round for the table, and we’ll be glad to bring you up to speed on period geekery. Be a love and pick up the tab this once.”

He liked her. With a nod he loped back to the bar and ordered “a round for the booth at the back,” gesturing to the group. The girl with the gears waved saucily, and the barkeep nodded.

“Yeah, ok. I can handle it. They’re regulars, I know their order.”

Lestrade called back, “Come help me out, love, I only have two hands, and I’ve got my own pint already.”

The girl with the gears joined him, and the two soon had everyone sorted. Lestrade pulled up a chair and sat at the end of the booth table.

“All right, then. I guess the first thing I need to ask is whether you know anything about the murder last night in the burial ground across the street.”

The four looked at him—startled and disturbed, but not, he thought, with any guilt. “Hadn’t heard about it till you brought it up,” said the Holmes-tall man. “When did it happen?”

Lestrade shrugged. “We don’t have a final estimate yet. In this weather the rigor passed pretty quickly: I’m going to be counting on the pathologist to give me a tight time. But I’m guessing roughly nine-ish. Could be an hour or so earlier, could be about the same amount later.”

“Near sunset, then,” the chubby man said. He looked at the others. “Finishing up the feast, then, and the last of the bardic performances?”

“Yeah,” the first woman said. She frowned, considering. “What does it have to do with us, though?” She studied Lestrade, searching his face. “Why do you need to know about Skadians?”

“Skadians?”

The girl with the gears said, “Members of the SCA: Society for Creative Anachronism. Sort of a mix, really—not reenactors, not Ren Faire, not cosplay. Wish-fulfillment hobby historians, I guess?”

“Speak for yourself, love,” the tall man said, sharply. “Me, it’s not just wish-fulfillment. In real life I get paid for my knowledge.” He held out a hand to Lestrade. “Jeff Morgan. I’m a member of the History Department over at King’s College. Renaissance specialization.”

“So this ska-stuff is a busman’s honeymoon for you, eh?”

“SCA, not ska—but Skadians, not, oh, ‘S.C.A.-ers’ or anything silly like that. Never mind, it’s just vocabulary. And, yes—I love the era, and like to play in it as well as research it and teach it.”

“So…it’s all about—what? History club?”

They laughed. “No. Not really. Social club for crazy romantics who want to play history, but with some real information, not just a cheap masquerade rental costume,” said the chubby man. “Look, it’s kind of like crazy sports fans: the ones who know all the statistics and play serious fantasy leagues and sit around for hours talking about who’s the best player ever? Can tell you every score a player made over their whole career? We’re all a bit nuts—we love the Middle-Ages and Renaissance, we love the fiction about it, too, and we really do love the history. Crafts. Social structure. You name it. We’ve got armorers—real armorers—and people who fight with broadswords or with staves, and archers, and bards, and weavers and brewers and…”

“And it’s mostly well researched, except when it’s not, and it’s fun except when everyone decides to squabble, and it’s just… it’s a _thing_ , all right?” This was the woman with the gears again. “Just think of us being to history what sports nuts are to Beckham and stamp collectors are to a mint Penny Black.”

“Ah,” Lestrade said with a peaceful grin. “Crazy, then? I can do crazy…”

They laughed, then the original woman leaned forward. “Really, what do you want to know? Why are you asking us?”

He shrugged. “Man was killed with a knife or a dagger. One of our consultants speculates a poniard: long and thin, two edges.”

“Sharpened edges or dull?” Jeff asked.

“Does it matter?” Lestrade asked. “I mean, of course it matters, but does it made a difference?”

“Poniard won’t be sharpened. Modern dagger may be.”

Lestrade was puzzled. “Not sharpened? Why not?”

“Used for stabbing and for blocking,” the teacher said. “It was a thrusting weapon, but one you might be handling on the blade during a fight.” He mimed. “Here’s my poniard,” he said, holding up his left hand. “If I want to injure you, I stab, like so.” He thrust his hand forward. “If I want to block a blow from your weapon, though, I might do this.” He held his imaginary poniard so that Lestrade could almost imagine it barring the space in front of him, blocking an incoming blow. He put his right hand up, grabbing the “tip” of the poniard, as though it was one end of a billy-club or police baton. “See? You don’t want to grab a sharpened edge, now, do you?”

“But it’s less versatile as a killing weapon?”

“No. A cutting blow isn’t as useful a killing blow with a weapon this size in any case. It was usually intended as a companion weapon, not as a primary.”

“So…all right. I’ll take your word for it. But not sharpened?”

“Not if you’re accurate to the period.”

“Ok. Let me check something.” Lestrade got out his phone and dialed the morgue. It took a moment, but soon he had Molly on the line. “Molly, love, have you got a stabbing victim in from Bunhill Field yet? You do? Good. Look, can you check something for me quickly? Was the stab made with a blade with sharpened edges, or with dull edges and a sharp point?  Yeah, I’ll wait.” He looked up at them. “Pathologist at St. Bartholemew's. Nicest girl you’ll ever meet, if you believe it or not. Just happens to spend her days up to her elbows in entrails.” He turned his attention back to the phone. “Yeah?  Really? You’re sure?  All right, no, that’s fine. Just needed to know. Ta, Molly. I owe you.” He closed the phone and looked at the group. “Sharpened on both edges. She’s thinking some kind of dagger. About an inch wide at the hilt.”

The group looked around, frowning.

“We have any of the knife-nuts in the club right now?” the first woman asked the others.

“No, and if we did—well, I was the one checking peace ties this weekend,” the chubby man said. “Anyone with a real weapon and I was pulling out the zip-ties.”

“Zip-ties?” Lestrade asked. “Okay, explain.”

The chubby man leaned forward to see past the first woman. “Okay. Um—I’m Eric. Eric Milk. Bardic, not a fighter, but there wasn’t much to do early in the day during the tourney, so they assigned me to check weapons. I can’t swear to outsiders—it was an open event, and there were ways in we didn’t have covered. But all our people checked in, and let me check their weapons. Everyone with a live blade said so, and let me peace-tie them.” Then, realizing Lestrade hadn’t followed that, he said, “Ok: live weapons—sharpened blade, or more loosely any blade fit to use as an actual weapon. Includes sharpened point. Peace-tie: a fastening that prevents it from being drawn. For some funny reason we don’t like even our own folks running around with live blades at a public event or a large group event. Too many variables, too little accountability, you know?”

“And you use zip-ties?” Lestrade was trying not to laugh. “Not exactly period, is it?”

“No,” Eric said, grinning, “but I promise it keeps those puppies from being drawn easily. Either tie to D-rings in sheaths and similar, or lash the hilt to the wearer’s belt.”

“If you can’t tie it down securely?”

“We confiscate it, like leaving your guns at the bar in a Western, and give out a receipt.”

 “You do know people can get around that?” Lestrade said.

“Yeah. But the thing is, people don’t,” Eric responded. “I know, I know, it sounds crazy. But our members are with us because they give a damn, you know? They care.”

“Did you see anyone with a double-edged dagger?”

Eric shook his head. “No. Nearest I saw to a dagger was a gorgeous wakizashi. Saw a lot of general purpose belt knives. Saw a few wide-blade daggers: more than the inch wide you’re talking about.”

“There was that creep,” said the first woman. She turned and smiled apologetically at Lestrade. “Sorry. I’m Amy. There was this one guy who wanted to sign up. Crap for a costume—I mean, it looked like a Robin Hood get-up from a school play. Cheap felt, woman’s fashion boots from Oxfam or something. But he had something that might be your weapon. Bit of a nutter, I thought. He wanted to join, but it was all about the weapons. Creepy.”

Eric twitched. “Him. Yeah. Spooky. I was afraid the guy in the Edward Scissorhands costume was going to be the same, but he shut up about the knives after a while.”

“Yeah. He weirded me out for a bit, too, but he didn’t have that grotty tone the guy in the Robin Hood get-up did. That one! I thought I was going to have to ask the security guards to remove that one from the grounds…”Amy said. “The other one—mainly just a nuisance.”

“I don’t get it,” Lestrade said, “why wouldn’t it be all about the weapons?”

They all looked at him, eyes sober. Then gear-girl said, “What would you think about someone who wanted to sign up as a copper, and it was all about the guns?”

He gave her an exasperated look. “Yeah, but that’s different. Most of what a copper does hasn’t got anything to do with guns—most of us are lucky to even carry a baton, for God’s sake. And even if we do carry, it’s all training and protocol and when you can use it and when you can’t, and God, the paperwork and psych testing you’re in for if you ever do use it in the field.... You’d have to be crazy to join the police if you’re a weapons nut…”

“Exactly,” said gear girl. She grinned. “Ok, I’m Lis, and I’m the only fighter here, so I’m the one you want to talk to. There are plenty of us who join wanting to learn fighting, but it’s all about hard work, and hardly ever with a live blade. Not that practice weapons can’t do enough damage, but most wars and tourneys are fought with rattan practice swords. The only time you’re likely to see a live blade in use is for a demonstration, and then the people wielding are pretty much trained professionals—or hobby fighters so good they’re professional for all practical purposes. Even the folks who love weaponry don’t show live steel…and if they’ve got a good reproduction it’s going to be peace-tied. And everyone’s going to know they have it, because if you’ve got a pretty reproduction you’re going to brag, you know?”

Lestrade looked at her, then glanced around the table. “You’re the fighter?”

“Knighted five years ago,” Eric said.

“Won the last six tourneys,” Amy confirmed.

“Kicks broadsword fighters asses,” Jeff said, his long, lean face split with a wide grin.

Lestrade looked at Lis and laughed in delight. He made a fist and they knocked. “You ever want to work in secret service? I know someone who could give you some tips. She’s got some mad skills of her own.”

Lis made a face. “Don’t do any projectile weapons more modern than a cross-bow.”

“Pity. She’d like you. So, to get back on track, a creep with a thing for weapons isn’t going to get his rocks off joining one of your groups—and he stands out like a sore thumb when he’s hanging around asking questions.”

“Yeah.” Lis gave a campy shudder. “Really grotty. I threw his sign-up sheet away along with the last couple song sheets and presentation schedules. Some people you’d just rather lose their contact info, you know?”

Lestrade considered his most common social encounters. Arrests. Busts. Interviews—witnesses, suspects and specialist experts. Informants. The cops around the office. And, of course, Holmeses.

“I think you probably get a better class of contact info than I do,” he said wryly. “Fucked up weapons freaks are pretty ordinary.”

“Poor you,” Lis replied, in honest sympathy. “You need to know more?”

He considered. “Did any of you see anyone who stood out, other than your weapons geek in the bad costume?”

They looked at each other.

“The guy with the beard and his date?” Eric asked.

“You mean the girl who confused a hula skirt with a period authentic belly-dancing costume?” Amy rolled her eyes. Jeff and Eric exchange glances, though—the girl may have been out of period. Lestrade was willing to bet she was also out of most of her costume, and that the results were…epic, if not authentic.

Jeff laughed. “They were…outstanding. But not exactly criminal.”

“That costume should have been,” Amy muttered.

“It wouldn’t have passed on a member, but, hey, walk-ins.” Lis sniffed. “There was that one Eric mentioned--the one who thought his steam-ish, punky costume was period authentic.”

They all laughed.

“Steam?” Lestrade asked.

Lis flicked her jacket and ran her fingers over the cogs. “Steampunk. It’s sort of Victorian fantasy with an industrial theme, yeah? Fun as all hell, but not period compliant…unless you count the present as its proper period. We had one guy come through with the most bitchin’ cosplay outfit: just awesome. Tim Burton meets Jules Verne. Kickin’. Came in late on Sunday and just—amazing. I think he was only there for the Feast and the bardic stuff. Remember him, Eric?”

Eric nodded. “Yeah. If he’d come to a private Feast I’d have given him a high-five for pure artistry and then kicked him out for having the gall to try to pull it off as period. But it was neat. Can’t say more, though: I was too hooked on the guy with the voice.”

“Oh, God, yeah,” Amy said. “God.” She closed her eyes. “Hell, he was in street wear—another walk-in. I don’t think he even knew it was going on. He just heard the music and came to find out what it was about. But that voice…”

“Did you hear him pick up the descant on Dowland’s ‘Come Again’? Like…” Eric shook his head in awe. “Oh, to have a voice like that. Beautiful. I could study a million years and I might match the skill, but nothing can give you a better voice than nature handed you.”

In the silence Lestrade said, “So—you can’t think of anyone who’s a likely killer?”

The four shook their heads. Lestrade took a moment, fishing in his wallet for business cards. “Okay. Look, you’ve been great. I’m going to pick up another round for you—and if you think of anything else, call me?”

He went back only to find Sherlock still percolating. Lestrade considered another pint, and changed his mind. Three was really above his limit, and it was getting late. Still hours from sunset, but rush hour was ending. It was dinner time.

Lestrade shoved Sherlock’s shin with one foot. “Holmes.”

“Mmmmmm.”

It wasn’t a hum of acknowledgement, or even a conscious sound. More like proof that life still lingered in the Great Detective’s lean form. It absolutely wasn’t a social interaction. Lestrade pocked Sherlock again.

“Hey, genius. I’m ordering dinner. Want something?”

Sherlock’s eyes focused on Greg, lit with annoyance. “Don’t be stupid. I’m working.”

“I thought you were trying to figure out what was going on with Mycroft,” Lestrade said. “If I’d known you were working on the case I’d have brought you along while I talked with the Ska-ders.”

“Skadians, and I’m not working on the case. That one will solve itself once the information comes in.” He was definitely in his peevish mode—worse than usual, Lestrade thought. Surly, sullen, arrogant twat…

“So you’re trying to solve your brother?”

Sherlock growled. “Oh, poke fun, why don’t you? It’s not like you didn’t have to come to me for advice about him, after all.”

“You really are trying to solve him!”

Sherlock’s eyes narrowed. “Do feel free to shut up if it occurs to you, Gareth.”

“Greg.”

“Grant, Gareth, Gandalf—whatever.”

“I know when to take what I’ve got and run. Gandalf it is. And you’re sure you don’t want me to order dinner for you?”

Sherlock studied his pint glass, almost wistfully, then said, “A pot of coffee. Now shut up. I’m thinking.”

Lestrade ordered the roast beef sandwich with horseradish cream, a mixed salad, and a mineral water. Then he muddled around on his mobile trying to do research on the case. He didn’t get far, but he did manage to get into the open files on the case at the Met. The print was too small to really read on the phone—he’d left his reading glasses in the car in his briefcase—but he was able to pull up the first of the photos of the crime scene and the victim, including a gruesome one of the victim on the slab—a postmortem mug shot. He looked at him.

He was a man of much the same age as Lestrade—late middle-age just shifting into “old man” status. He had a high forehead, a delicate mouth, and the kind of wrinkles and creases that suggest a life never quite free from worry. Wrinkles could lie, though: Lestrade had learned to doubt visual appearances. He studied the man, flipped to the write-up, squinting and muttering as he tried to make out the identification, then flipped back.

The waiter arrived with the tray. Lestrade put the phone down as he made room for the plates and glasses and silver and the large carafe of coffee with two cups, creamer and sugar. The waiter was quick and nimble, and only as he finished up did he glance at Greg’s phone.

“Oh,” he said, “that’s Joey.” Then he blinked, and his face emptied of anything but shock, as he realized the picture was of a corpse. “Oh, my God. He’s dead, isn’t he?”

Lestrade said, “You know him?”

“Obvious,” Sherlock snapped, without even coming out of his trance, getting it in before the waiter had a chance to reply. The waiter looked at him worriedly.

“Ignore him,” Lestrade said. “Just—tell me about this guy.” He flicked the frame of the mobile.

“He’s a regular. Was…was a regular. Joey. Um—Joseph…Joseph Vaughn. That’s it. Came in every Sunday night for Blues Night. But he never got here last night.”

Lestrade sighed. “No. He was…interrupted on his way here.” Now he knew why the victim was in the Bunhill Fields Burial Ground, though: the park was on the way from wherever he’d been to his weekly appointment with the blues. “Look, you’re going to have to give an interview about him—you and anyone else who works here who knew him. Let me get your name?” He took it down, along with contact information for the pub owner, then told the waiter to expect a call sometime the next day.

Then, on a hunch, Lestrade went back to the table of history hobbyists. “I’m sorry, but could you look at a picture and tell me if you recognize the man?” He held out the phone with the victim’s picture.

Hunch correct! With much gasping and cross-talk the four identified “Joey” as their mystery singer. There was much mourning to hear he was now the _late_ mystery singer.

“A voice like that? It’s criminal!”

“It’s murder,” Lestrade pointed out, dryly. “The voice doesn’t matter.”

“The voice makes it twice as criminal, then,” Eric snapped back. He slumped, then, truly regretful. “You don’t understand. It was beautiful—his face was still as glass, but it was like watching an angel dream or something. Mysterious. Lonely. Sad. But, God, it was genius.” He sighed. “Sorry. But you really wouldn’t understand if you hadn’t heard.”

Lestrade thought of Sherlock, face lit with pure, white intensity as he solved a case. Then he thought of Mycroft, eyes fixed to the screen of his laptop, hands moving in fluid grace, sliding from keyboard to touchscreen to mouse to a few select auxiliary devices, a blaze of genius so intense it forced Lestrade back on school-boy Shakespeare. Mycroft “gave to airy nothing a local habitation and a name.” When he worked, all that genius and data was given form and substance; it had a name, and the name was Mycroft Holmes. 

“I think I understand,” Lestrade said, softly. “I’ve known a genius or two in my time. It’s something, isn’t it?”

Eric sighed and closed his eyes. “Such a loss,” he said, and raised his pint to his mouth without bothering to open his eyes again.

“Our man was on his way here from that event at the HAC,” Lestrade said, coming back to his table. Then, “Oi! That’s my sandwich, sunshine!”

“Finished thinking,” Sherlock said, wolfing down a bite the size of a cricket ball. “Hungry.”

“Bastard!” Lestrade sighed, and huffed over to the bar, placing an order for another sandwich. Coming back he poured himself a cup of coffee and pushed his entire plate over to Sherlock, who simply picked up the other half and started gnawing, without so much as a “thank you.” “Our guy,” Lestrade said, “the vic? He was over at that Ren thing with the Skaders—“

“Skadians,” Sherlock mumbled through another bite.

“Yeah, yeah, you know everything. Skadians. He was over at their thingy Sunday night. Stayed to listen to the singing, and then headed through the burial ground to come here for their weekly blues gig.”

“I know. I heard the waiter and deduced the rest.”

“Oh, wonderful. Why do I even bother?”

“Don’t whinge, Galt, it’s a paycheck.” Lestrade balled up a serviette and tossed it across the table at Sherlock, hitting him on the forehead. Sherlock ducked, squawked—but then looked laughingly over at Lestrade, for a quick moment letting charm and fondness shine before retreating into his usual reserve and snark. “Someone’s got to keep track of that crew of mental misfits you’re in charge of.”

“And when I’m supposed to be keeping track of you?”

“Working with me is your reward—the one treat to offset a life of otherwise hopeless apathy and despair.”

“You wish, you twat.” But he couldn’t help laughing. After this many years he was used to Sherlock’s sass. He was like a gaudy jay in a pine tree, dropping acorns on the fox below and shouting out insults: a scamp and a scapegrace…but with a certain charm. “So, any idea who killed him?”

“Not yet. Data’s not all in,” Sherlock said, and reached across the table, snagging Lestrade’s salad. Lestrade snatched it back.

“No, Sonny Jim. _Mine_. Hands off. Go order your own salad, bright boy.” He stabbed a tomato wedge, and said, “So you want me to fill you in on what I’ve learned?”

“Not really. Double-edged, sharpened on both edges, narrow width, possible it was associated with an SCA event, but unlikely to have been carried by one of the members of the hosting Shire, who’d all be likely to submit to peace-ties.”

“You really do know how to rub it in.” Lestrade managed to turn his scowl into a smile for the incoming waiter, though, happy to see a new sandwich arrive. He settled down, picked up a fat half, and took a large bite.

“Don’t you want to know about Mycroft?” Sherlock asked, eyes limpid with assumed innocence.

Lestrade ultimately decided it wasn’t that bad: they didn’t have to resort to the Heimlich to get him breathing again. Still, he coughed and choked and had to clear his throat with a half a cup of coffee before he could really talk again. “You do that on purpose.”

“Yep.” Sherlock didn’t quite suppress his amusement as he popped the terminal “p.”

“Yeah, okay. So?”

“So I think you probably ought to ask for a transfer.”

Lestrade frowned. “That’s it?”

“Yep.” Another pop.

“That’s _all_?”

“Yep.”

“You sound like a cheap comic faking a champagne bottle opening.”

Sherlock scowled. “No need to be surly.”

“Surly? _Surly_? Me surly? You…you…prat. You total, complete, dickheaded prat. You keep me sitting on my bum watching you think or send me off to do make-work you don’t actually need done—and then you call me surly? When all you have to offer is ‘get a transfer’?”

Sherlock studied Lestrade, his face a picture of uncertain confusion. “Not the answer you were looking for?”

“I was kind of hoping you’d have a hint how to get Mycroft back—the real Mycroft.” Lestrade scowled at his friend. “I kind of liked the silly clot…and I really liked working with him, y’know?”

Sherlock cocked his head, more uncertain than ever. “You _liked_ working with Mycroft? Are you sure? You’re not just… being polite or something?”

Lestrade rolled his eyes. “Why would I be polite about it? Especially now? If I didn’t really like working with him, I could have come up with ‘get a transfer’ just fine on my own without asking your help, you daft idjit.”

Sherlock just sat there, the last chunk of the sandwich held in his hand, eyes studying Lestrade worriedly.

“Sherlock?”

“Mmmmm.”

“Are you zoning out on me again?”

“Mmmmaybe.” He blinked, then asked cautiously, “So the optimal answer would include a return to prior interaction modes?”

“Uh—maybe? An optimal answer would be… I don’t know. I liked him, you know? It was like having a friend.”

“Mycroft doesn’t _do_ friends.”

“All right, so maybe it was one-sided,” Lestrade said, feeling a bit pitiful. “But it was still a nicer way to work than what’s going on now. I feel like some kind of demon from the pit, y’know? Like he’s got to clear out the brimstone stink when I leave.”

Sherlock sighed. “He’s retreating.”

“You could say that,” Lestrade snapped.

“No. I’m serious. Mycroft doesn’t _do_ friends. I’m surprised you ever thought he might. He’s…not outgoing. Well, other than professionally, when it’s a job necessity.”

“I never thought he was, sunshine. There’s still a difference between before and now.”

Sherlock, rather to Lestrade’s surprise, looked miserable. “Perhaps.” He seemed to struggle even to concede the possibility.

“Oh for God’s sake, Sherlock. I’m not that bad. Between your brother and you I’m beginning to feel like I really am a monster.”

“It’s not you,” Sherlock said, “it’s _Mycroft_. He’s… Did you do anything?”

“Nothing we hadn’t been doing from the start.”

Sherlock pouted. “He’s Mycroft. I can’t…” He looked away. “Sometimes I think there may be a human being in there. And then… I don’t know. It’s like he’s not really there.” He met Lestrade’s gaze, saying intensely, “If you thought you were more than just a useful contact for him, you were mistaken, you know. In the end it’s all use and pragmatism and control.”

The trouble was, Lestrade had known Sherlock too long, and seen him through too many things. He knew that tone of voice. Sherlock had used it often, while trying to convince Lestrade that he was in full control of the drugs, gauging their influence down to the finest milliliter calibration, down the the last second of the reaction arc. He’d used that tone of voice when he assured Lestrade he didn’t need any help sorting out his life. And when he’d assured Lestrade long ago that he didn’t need friends—that they were just a matter of…

“Use. Use and pragmatism and control. You’ve used those words before, sunshine. It wasn’t true when you said them about yourself, either.”

Sherlock snarled, then—a literal snarl, growling and furious. “I assure you, compared to Mycroft, I’m positively chummy.”

“Does that mean he’s more scared than you were?” Lestrade snapped back…only to have Sherlock freeze solid on the other side of the table, face going blank and empty, eyes slipping into the thousand-mile stare.

“Well, fuck,” Lestrade huffed.

He finished his salad and his sandwich, then sat nibbling on chips and spinning back and forth between two puzzles: the case, and the mystery of Mycroft—and now Sherlock.

He could remember Sherlock when he first met him—angry and erratic and very close to feral. The young man was damaged, and Lestrade couldn’t put his finger on the injury. The drugs, he was fairly sure, were the symptom, not the cause, though eventually they would become a cause in their own right. But there was something beneath that had gone wrong. He’d spent months letting the younger man circle him. Then Mycroft had appeared—warmer, saner, and so obviously terrified for his brother. It was Mycroft who’d arranged for a private interview, and Mycroft, obviously fighting reserve and uncertainty and pride, who’d said, “Please, give him a case. Give him something. He _likes_ you. I can’t tell you how rare that is—Sherlock likes you.”

“Can’t tell it by me,” Lestrade had responded, studying the puzzling man sitting on the far side of his desk. “Treats me like an enemy.”

“Then you’re a member of a select club,” Mycroft had said. “It takes something to qualify. He must like you quite a lot to push you away so hard, yet never abandon you or force you to abandon him. Please—give him something. Please?”

Looking back, Lestrade wondered what it had taken to make Mycroft Holmes risk asking. He knew what he’d thought at the time—that he loved his baby brother very much to overcome that much reserve and beg.

The question was unsettling. The next logical question—how much had it taken to make Mycroft Holmes risk asking a _complete stranger_ —was worse. Even Lestrade’s conviction that Mycroft had probably already pulled Lestrade’s records---everything from birth through both MI5 and the Met—didn’t really change it.

He kicked Sherlock in the shin again. “Holmes? Who’s the shy one—you or Mycroft?”

“What?” Sherlock blinked and tried to sort out the question. He’d obviously been deep in that damned Mind Palace.

“Who’s the shy one—you or Mycroft?”

“Neither of us,” Sherlock said, with exaggerated dignity. “We’re _reserved. Private_. Not _shy._ ” He said “shy” like it was a filthy word. Lestrade had the amusing sense that he wanted to ask for mouthwash after saying it.

“Bollocks,” Lestrade said, grinning. “If you were wild animals ‘shy’ would be at the top of all the descriptions, followed by ‘reclusive,’ ‘timid,’ ‘retiring,’ and ‘seldom seen.’ You burn out after fifteen minutes in company and start insulting people just to make them leave you alone. I always figured you were the shy one, in spite of all the dramatics, because Mycroft’s just so….so Mycroft. But I’m betting I’m wrong. So, which of you two is the _really_ shy one?”

Sherlock’s mouth opened, shut, opened, then he growled. “Mycroft’s not _shy_. He’s…solitary.”

“And the difference?”

“He likes being alone.”

“Yeah, I can believe it.”

“He’s not lonely.” His voice went sour. “He _said_ so.”

“And you asked?” That was a surprise.

Sherlock looked away. “Find out about that printout under the corpse. People don’t go dropping academic printouts under corpses.”

“You’re changing the subject.”

“So did Mycroft when I asked if he was lonely,” Sherlock growled. “Find out about the printout.” Then he sank into his seat, hunched down, arms crossed over his slim chest, and retreated into his silences.

Lestrade sighed and pulled out his mobile. “Clancy? Yeah, this is Lestrade. Can you connect me with Evidence? Yeah. Annie? That you? Greg—DI Lestrade. Yeah, right, that one. Yeah, it just gets whiter all the time—the job ages you, yeah? Look, hair aside, I was wondering, can you check on a piece of evidence from today’s case over at the Bunhill Fields Burial Grounds? No, no idea what number—they hadn’t bagged it when I left for the day. It’s from under the corpse—a print out of some kind. Donovan said it was some kind of academic material. No.  No… Yes. That sounds like it might be it. Can you describe it for me? No, I don’t have my laptop with me, sorry. Just my phone and there’s no chance I’ll be able to read a scan off that. Yeah, scan it anyway and email it to me, but if you could just take a go at describing it. Read part of it, maybe?  Yeah. Okay, I’ll wait.” He could hear Annie rustling around, presumably putting on gloves, opening the evidence bag, then pulling out the paper. A moment later he frowned. “Hold it. That’s poetry, yeah? No? Ballads?  Hang on, let me write that down.” He fumbled in his jacket pocket and pulled out a stub of pencil, then flipped the paper place mat. “Go slow, now. ‘UCSB English Broadside Ballad Archive.’  Got a URL to go with that? Yeah, good. Let me read that back: <http://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/>.  It’s right? Great. Thanks, love. Yeah. Ok, have a good one. Night…”

He looked at Sherlock. The man was still in the twilight zone. He stood and walked back to the SCA group again. “Got a question—any of you heard of the UCSB English Broadside Ballad Archive?”

Eric sat up. He was clearly a number of pints deeper into the evening, but not yet beyond coherence. “Yeah! Cool site. University of California at Santa Barbara. They’ve been building that for, what—ten-twenty years, now? Great resource.” He began to hum a plaintive melody. _“Shall I languish still for my love, for my love, for my love, for my love, without relief? Shall my faith so well approved now despair, now despair, now despair, now despair, now despair unto my grief? Where shall beauty then be found, but where virtue doth abound? ? Come away6, come away, come away, come away, come away and do not stay!”_

Lis scowled. Amy drew a breath and appeared ready to sing a responding verse, but Lestrade cut in quickly. “Whoa-whoa-whoa, hold on. Slow down. Not ready for opera quite yet. So, you know the site, yeah?” When they again confirmed, he said, “So you use printouts for your song sheets?”

Eric shook his head, muzzily, frowning. “Ever?  Or just last night. Because we might use printouts for a private feast or for rehearsals….”

“But not last night?”

“Good God, no,” Jeff said, moaning. “No, for nights like last night the song sheets we hand out are pure anachronistic crap. Things people know, mainly. ‘Greensleeves,’ ‘Go, Lassie, Go.’ ‘Parting Glass.’ Hell, we even did ‘Toora-loora-loora’ once, and no one said a thing about it being from a Bing Crosby movie. It’s got to be stuff people know for things like yesterday’s events.”

“Fuckin’ ‘Danny Boy,’” Eric moaned, and for a brief second the entire table broke forth in song.

 _“You're not Irish, you can't be Irish, you don't know ‘Danny Boy’_  
_Or ‘Toora Loora Loora’ or even ‘Irish Eyes’_  
_You've got a hell of a nerve to say you came from Ireland_  
_So cut out all the nonsense and sing ‘McNamara's Band’”_

They were a mixed bunch. Eric was good, if a bit reedy. Jeff was a belting baritone with a lot of volume but not much precision—though that might have been the beer making the melodic choices. Amy had a weak little soprano that squeaked along merrily, like Minnie Mouse attempting music hall comic songs. Lis, poor girl, was fit only to sing with a murder of crows—but that didn’t stop her from cawing away with the other three, fiercely determined, even when Eric shot her a pained glance.

“Ooookay, quiet down, now,” Lestrade bellowed, as the group started to pound the table. “Come on, have a heart—just tryin’ to figure something out here.” They looked up at him, pie-eyed and clearly heading into the boozier waters of pub minstrelsy, but he managed to bring them around. “So, you won’t be using anything from that website for a sing-song for the general public?”

“Like serving good ale to Americans,” Amy whined. “Wasted. Just wasted. And all they want is ‘proper cold Budweiser— _real_ beer.’”

“Right. I’ll take that for a no?,

“Take it for a ‘Hell, no,’” Eric said. “And a ‘bugger that for a game of soldiers’ on top of it.”

“Right.” He frowned. He’d written down the URL of the website, but hadn’t included the more extensive URL for individual pages…and he didn’t entirely trust this lot to stay sober long enough for him to look up the songs even if he called Annie and got the information. “Look, give me your contact information. I’m likely to have to get back to you tomorrow.” He spent ten minutes extracting their phone numbers and email addresses one painful letter and number at a time, then sloped on back to his own table, frowning.

“It’s not song sheets,” he said to Sherlock, “At least, it’s not song sheets for the Ska-stuff.”

“SCA. Skadians,” Sherlock said. “Get it right.” He was still not really focused, but he couldn’t resist the chance to snipe.

Lestrade grinned mischievously, knowing he’d lured the detective out of his retreat into defensive cognition. “Why? You can’t get my name right; I don’t see why I have to get the Essy-stuff right.”

“S. C. A. It’s not that difficult.”

“G.R.E.G. Back atcha. Anyway, the papers found under the corpse: they’re period songs, but they’re not anything the group put out. They wouldn’t have just been dropped or blown there as regular litter from the event.”

Sherlock perked up. “Oh. This may be one of the interesting ones. We’ll have to look at the papers in the morning. I need another pint.”

“To solve the mystery?”

“No. To endure the upcoming conversation.” Sherlock scowled. “Defintely a pint.”

Lestrade looked at him askance. “Really.”

Sherlock glowered at him. “I considered requesting a boilermaker, but there was too much chance it would relax me just enough to go over and explain to your anachronists that history is not the only time they’re getting creative with. And that they shouldn’t insist on demonstrating the pure idiocy of the Americans using ‘Anachreon on High’ as the basis for their national anthem. The tall man can’t hit the high notes, the thin woman can’t hit the low ones, and the short little round one can’t hit any of them on a good day sober, much less when she’s miserable and drunk. Instead of lecturing them, though I intend to suffer for your enlightenment. So one pint, Lestrade. An oatmeal stout if they have one. A brown ale if they don’t.”

Lestrade collected a pint for Sherlock and another carafe of coffee for himself. “I’ve got to admit, the idea of a conversation that scares you, scares me, too.” He leaned his elbows on the table, folded his hands together and propped his chin on them. “So?”

Sherlock grimaced, and took a long drink from his pint. Then he breathed in a deep breath—let it out. Appeared ready to speak. Changed his mind and repeated the cycle. At last he said, “I tend to fail in my analysis of my brother.” He clenched his jaw, and added, “Frequently.”

  
“How?” Lestrade was honestly curious.

Sherlock grimaced. “Little things, really. Minor. There was the time I thought he intended to allow a plane full of civilian passengers to be blown up to maintain strategic secrecy, for example. Coventry conundrum. Enigma. All that.”

“And?”

Sherlock scowled. “And he wasn’t. He’d come up with a plan to avoid the problem entirely.”

“I see. And?”

“And his meddling. I will admit, when I was younger I thought it was entirely uncalled for. In retrospect I must concede the time spent in rehab was probably necessary under the circumstances.”

Lestrade remembered those circumstances. “That seems like a reasonable assessment, yes.”

“And…er. When he pulled me out of the field after… well. I don’t know if he’s told you how I came to work as a consultant rather than a field agent?”

“No. I’m under the impression he considers it a very private issue.”

“Quite,” Sherlock said, gloomily. “I was rather offended at the time.”

“And now?”

“Well. On further consideration, the tentative evaluation of increasing indications of self-generated sociopathy seems not entirely unrealistic…”

“Mycroft pulled you out because…”

“Because my evaluating psychiatrists weren’t comfortable with my reaction to certain assignments I’d been given by Mycroft’s and my superiors.” He pouted. “It was simply a logical coping mechanism. Really. A rational response to a particular type of work.”

“Um…would that be wet-work?”

Sherlock pouted harder. “They send such mixed messages. ‘Kill this one, don’t kill that one.’ You’ve got to find some way to deal with it.”

“Right. And you were angry Mycroft took you off that detail.”

“Made something of a stink about it, actually. I thought that time he’d bunged a hole in his career for sure, but he’s Mycroft. Came through shining in the end. Of course. Turned it to his advantage. Probably had it planned all along.”

“You really think so?”

Sherlock sighed, and stared into the depths of the stout. “No,” he said, his voice unusally small, if deeper and huskier than ever. He sighed in petulant frustration. “He does it every time. I think I’ve figured him out—worked out the underlying principles, deduced what’s driving him. It all makes sense. And I keep being wrong.”

“I see. So—this is you telling me you’re the wrong person to go to for advice about Mycroft?”

Sherlock shook his head, dark curls quivering. “No. There’s no one else to ask. It’s just…” He bit his lip…

Lestrade frowned, watching. Sherlock Holmes actually bit his lip, like a fretful little boy trying to work out something that upset him badly. “All right. Give.”

“He’s protecting himself.”

“Huh?”

“All the pulling back. He’s protecting himself.”

“All right, could you please explain that? From what?”

“From you, I would suppose,” Sherlock said, a bit of dry, sarky humor seeping back into his voice. “Surprise, Galahad. You’re the big bad wolf.”

“I’m what?”

“The big bad wolf. Or perhaps a giant mutant goldfish.” He met Lestrade’s eyes. “Lestrade, I don’t think of him as ‘shy.’ I _never_ think of him as shy. Stubborn and reclusive and isolated and cold. Unemotional. Perfectly logical. Splendid in his solitude. On a good day I can just realize he might be lonely. I just… never think of him as shy.” He closed his eyes. “He used to just rip the guts out of people who teased me. Never lifted a finger, but they all stopped picking on either of us, because ten minutes in the lunch room with them and he’d leave them crying. That’s not an exaggeration. He could reduce even the school toughs to tears. Between what he could deduce and how he could reveal it: he was brilliant. Bloody brilliant. You don’t think of someone like that as shy.”

Lestrade could see that. “Half-way between your personal hero and the scariest monster in the universe?”

Sherlock shrugged the kind of shrug that means yes, but that tries to pretend no such admission is being made. “Mycroft was…”

“What?”

Sherlock looked away, saying only, “You know, when I was seven he got his growth spurt. Jumped from just under five feet to six-one in a little over a year. Mummy used to say she had to get him new trousers every month.”

Lestrade chuckled. “You must have really looked up to him,” he quipped, intending both meanings.

Sherlock just nodded.

“Not easy to believe he was just a boy, then?”

Another shrug.

“Not easy to believe he’s just a man now? Human?”

“If he’s protecting himself, logic would suggest he’s afraid of being hurt,” Sherlock said, his voice dry and precise, as though he could retreat into abstract logic and evade the implications. “If he’s afraid he’ll be hurt, then you must either trust his judgment and let him retreat—or decide what to do about it.”

“Which brings us back to where we started, genius,” Lestrade growled. “Got any ideas?”

Sherlock made a sour face. “This is hardly my area,” he said. “You should talk to John. Or Mary.”

“Granted, they’ve got some experience in the care and feeding of Holmeses,” Lestrade said. “But I was kind of hoping you’d have some insight.”

“I don’t do insight. I do deduction,” Sherlock snapped. “As I’ve indicated, where Mycroft is concerned I’m far too often wrong. And when I’m right, I’m never sure what to do about it.” He gulped down ale, then, and heaved a gusty sigh. “Give me your phone.”

“What?”

“Give me your phone, Lestrade. Don’t just sit there like a dolt—hand it over.”

Lestrade frowned at him. “Have you lost your marbles?”

“No, moron, I’m changing the subject. Do try to keep up, please? Phone. Now.”

Lestrade fished in his pocket and drew out the phone, handing it across the table. “You’re barmy.”

“Hardly news,” Sherlock snapped back, and prodded the screen a time or two. He put the phone to his ear. “Hello? Clancy? Can you connect me with Annie, down in Evidence? No, consultant, working the Bunhill Fields case. Yes, with Lestrade. Thanks. Annie, this is Sherlock Holmes. Why, yes, _the_ Sherlock Holmes.” He was practically purring—a deep, satisfied rumbled from down in his chest, a sound fit for one of the big cats—a tiger or leopard or such. “Why thank you. I’m flattered. I’ll pass the word on to John, too. Now, Annie, do you think you can do me a favor? No, no, nothing dangerous or illegal. I just need you to tell me what’s on that paperwork Lestrade had you check earlier. No, no, I need specifics.”

For the next half-hour Lestrade drank coffee, the SCA party got rowdier and rowdier, and Sherlock jotted notes. He wrote on his place mat—both sides—then stole the mats from the table behind them, then hissed at Lestrade to steal from the table on the other side. Meanwhile Annie apparently read, and read, and read, and then started describing other details—how much blood had seeped onto the print outs, how many staples used, and on and on.

Lestrade knew Annie. She was a tired, frustrated woman in her fifties with no patience for fools—a disadvantage in this weary life. Apparently her patience with geniuses was substantially more extensive. Lestrade made a mental note to remember that. You never knew when it would be convenient to know how to twist the woman in charge of the evidence department around your finger.

When Sherlock was done he frowned at the pile of paper, skimming through his own idiosyncratic shorthand, all sweeping pothooks and jots. “’My dear and only love take heed?’  ‘Fair angel of England thy beauty most bright?’ They’re all love songs. Tawdry, mawkish, long love songs. It’s quite distressing to realize that there is no more golden age for love lyrics than the present…if only thanks to the sheer volume competing.” He skipped to the back of his notes. “Appointment time written in pencil in one hand—audition? For what, I wonder? Email address in another hand. Phone number jotted at the top of the last page in the same hand that wrote the audition time, according to your good Annie.” He thought about it all. “Lestrade, is there any reason to think anyone associated with the murder might wish to attend an audition of any sort?”

“Victim apparently sang like a lark,” Lestrade said. “I’d tell you to go ask the Skandians but they’re so drunk by now I can’t promise they won’t fall all over you and cry and sing songs at you. But he was apparently memorable.”

“Interesting,” Sherlock said. “Of course, we don’t know for certain that the papers were his. They still might have been dropped by someone else. It could simply be a coincidence that the victim was interested in music, including period music, and that a sheaf of papers about Renaissance ballads was found under his body. But Mycroft would say that the universe isn’t lazy enough to generate all that many coincidences. He insists that meaningful repetitions and parallels are the realm of art, not random circumstance.”

“Mycroft? Art? I didn’t know he was interested. He a musician, like you?”

“No,” Sherlock snapped. “Worse.”

“You mean he plays badly?”

“No, I mean he’s a _critic_.” Sherlock’s voice dripped acid. “He _analyzes_ art. You don’t want to hear him go on about reflections and symmetries and meaningful repetition of tropes and…” He shuddered. “It’s appalling.”

“Let me guess,” Lestrade said. “He’s evaluated your compositions.”

“One. Only one. After that I suggested that if he ever attempted it again and I heard of it, I’d break into his house and cut all his favorite ties in half.”

“Cruel.”

“Only in proportion to the original crime,” Sherlock growled. “Abominable. Simply unacceptable.”

“So you told him not to do it again?”

“Oh, that’s not what I told him. That’s what he said about my composition.”

“I see.”

“Granted, it was one of my first. And I was high when I wrote it.”

“Good to know there were extenuating circumstances for his lack of taste and judgment.”

“Nothing sufficient to justify his comments,” Sherlock said, brooding.

A stranger appeared at the side of the table then—a pleasant looking young man in clothing that suggested a young teacher or a graduate student. Respectable, clean, in the semi-casual range. Nice enough to wear to work if you weren’t in a particularly formal job, Lestrade thought. The man cleared his throat, uneasily, and said, “Paul, the waiter—he said I should talk to you. Um…something about a murder over in the Burial Ground?”

Lestrade looked at him sharply, then. “Yes. I take it you haven’t heard about it?”

The man shrugged. “No. But I don’t listen to the news much.”

“It hasn’t made the news, yet.” Lestrade slipped out his phone and pulled up the picture of the victim again. “Do you know this man?”

The stranger turned grey. “Oh, my God.” His voice was shocked and grieving. “Oh, my God. That’s Joey. Oh, my God. Oh, my God…” He seemed to sway, and Lestrade jumped up, grabbing a chair from the nearby table and easing the man down on it. “A friend of yours?”

“Sort of. Ex lover? That was a few years ago. Coworker, now, I guess. We’re both music teachers at the Pandour Conservatory.” He made a face. “Which isn’t half so important as it sounds. Little private music school. Family owned. Respectable, and it turns out capable students, but it’s not exactly the London Conservatory of Music, if you get what I mean. But it’s a living. When you’re a musician, a reliable income’s nothing to laugh at.”

Lestrade and Sherlock exchanged glances. Neither was ignorant of the most commonplace truth in crime investigation: the killer was almost always someone close to the victim. Friend, family, lover…

“We’re probably going to have to arrange for you to come in for questioning Mr….?”

“Oh. Dan. Dan Mendez.” He searched his trousers and pulled out a card case. “Here.”

The card was very ordinary: clearly self-designed, it was too busy, crammed with too much information—“guitar:banjo:mandolin:lute:recorder:flute.” Lestrade had the sad sense that the man would have added kazoo and spoons if he could have fit it in. There was an ugly ribbon-twisted musical stave with flying quarter-notes grouped on and around it. It was the sort of business card that announced that its owner could provide no services of any great quality while offering anything and everything for one low price.

“Here’s my contact information,” the man said. “It’s got my home phone, my mobile, my number and extension at the Conservatory, my email address, my professional website, my blog site, and my home address.”

Sherlock, with no sign of irony, took out his magnifying glass and examined the card. “Why so it does,” he said, in wonder. “Very high resolution printer, Mr. Mendez! But you should buy better quality card stock: those laser-cut edges are always a bit fuzzy when you pull them apart.” He looked at the man, still sitting a bit limp in the chair. “Would you know what music your…associate…was working on? Anything in particular he would be preparing for? Say, an audition?”

“Audition?” Mendez shook his head. “Not so far as I’d heard. We all keep an eye out for good gigs, but I’m not aware of anything coming up in his field.”

“Voice?”

Mendez shook his head. “No. He could sing—God, he could sing. A genius. But he suffered from terrible stage-fright in auditions. I don’t think he ever got past the first five minutes without his vocal cords freezing up on him. He could sing almost any other time, but there was something about that setting—about being judged that way—that terrified him. He finally gave up. Too frightened. No, Joey played piano, professionally. Mainly jazz, R&B, and blues. He wasn’t as good at that as he was at singing, but he was good enough. His fingers never froze up, even in auditions.”

Sherlock grunted. “Logical. That, however, would suggest that he wasn’t working on any of the material in the papers that were found with him.” He pushed the note-covered place mats toward Mendez, who glanced at them and pushed them back.

“I don’t read short-hand, I’m afraid,” he said, apologetically.

Sherlock grunted. “They’re English broadside ballads,” he said. “All love songs.” He started reading them, a verse or two of each. Mendez frowned, shaking his head each time.

“No. No, not that either. Joey liked ballads, especially the ones that edged up close to madrigal forms—responsive material, repeating material that could be harmonized. No, not that. Not that. Wait, do that one again…”

Sherlock made a face, and started again. He worked through the first verse, Mendez frowning as he spoke, then started on the second. Mendez said, “No. Form’s perfect for Joey, but no, it’s nothing I heard him do.”

Lestrade, though, said, “Again—that second verse. Read it again.”

Sherlock shrugged. “Shall I languish still for my love, for my love, for my love, for my love, without relief? Shall my faith so well approved now despair, now despair, now despair, now despair, now despair unto my grief? Where shall beauty then be found, but where virtue doth abound? ? Come away6, come away, come away, come away, come away and do not stay!”

“Shit,” Lestrade said, and scrambled out of his chair. “Back in a moment.”

He raced to the back of the room. Amy had already left, but Jeff, Lis and Eric were still there. Lestrade flashed his warrant card again. “Sorry, sorry, but I’ve got to talk to you again. No, not here. Come on over to my table.” He herded the three tipsy Skadians toward the front of the pub. Before they could reach Sherlock and Mendez, though, Eric froze. “It’s that steam bastard!”

“Shit,” Lis said. She scowled. “Arsehole. Stupid anachronistic asshole. Not authentic.” She started forward, but Jeff grabbed her elbow. Eric, definitely three sheets to the wind, pointed dramatically at Mendez, saying, “Officer, arrest that man! He’s the one who came to our feast in steampunk!”

“I don’t think that’s a crime,” Lestrade pointed out.

“It should be!” Eric said, fiercely. “It absolutely should be!” He harrumphed. “Chased you off in the end, though,” he said. “And we threw away your contact information, too!”

Lestrade looked at Mendez. The man looked startled, and a bit confused, but not guilty or fearful. The musician looked at Eric and frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“An-an-anachronistic costume!” Eric said, disapprovingly. “Bad. Not good. Wrong period entirely. Not even good Victorian! All those spikes and points. Like a cross between a hedgehog and a leather fetish. Anachrooooo-nitsic!”

“I thought it was the Society for Creative Anachronism,” Mendez said, tartly. “It was a _creative_ anachronism.”

“It was steam,” Eric grumbled. “Sort of. Or a Gieger homage. Or…”

“Wait a minute. Spikes? Points?”

“All sticky-out,” Eric said, gesturing broadly to indicate what had, apparently, been a veritable forest of spines and spikes.

“Very Edward Scissor-Hands,” Jeff agreed. “It was a bit creepy. Very cool, but creepy.” There was a note of admiration in his voice. “Not right for a Skadian event, but, damn, I’d wear that outfit to a cosplay event in a split second.”

“It wasn’t that good,” Lis grumbled. “More kink than punk. Knife freak.”

“I borrowed it from a friend,” Mendez said, exasperated. “Go talk to him about design quality. I just wanted to show willing, damn it. Stupid outfit was a nightmare. All those spikes and edges. The only upside was they weren’t sharp.”

“Wait a minute,” Lestrade said. He turned to Mendez. “They were real blades?”

“Are you crazy? Of course not. Hell, you’d cut your own throat trying to get into that outfit if it were real,” Mendez said. “It was about a ton and a half of old iron, but the stuff was blunt. I mean, Corky’s a bit of a freak, but even he’s not enough of a freak to want to stab people in the Tube on the way to conventions.”

“Those were real blades.” The scope of it was a bit staggering. “You don’t need bloody Excalibur to do damage, you stupid prat!”

“What part of ‘dull’ don’t you understand?”

“What part of ‘blunt instrument’ is over _your_ head?” Lestrade pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to summon patience. “You’ve obviously never seen a man run through by the blunt end of a broken branch. It doesn’t take half so much force as you’d think to drive a dull metal crochet hook through someone’s eye. Me, I can tell you first-hand what it looks like. Interested, sunshine?”

Sherlock reached across the table and tugged Lestrade’s coat. “He didn’t do it.”

“What?” Lestrade blinked, feeling beset. This had been intended to be a night with a couple of pints and a chance to ask his consultant and the brother of his friend for a bit of personal guidance, not an extension of the day’s investigation. And bloody Sherlock! “We don’t know who bloody did it, you sodding arse. I walked in here tonight with no suspects—not one—and here I am surrounded by options. If this one didn’t do it, who did?”

Sherlock looked away. “I’m not yet certain, but the balance of probability suggests that a man dressed in a massive black leather costume covered in the byproducts of the ironmonger’s trade is going to be ill-equipped to nip over into a public park, wrest a blade free from his costume, and commit murder. All unnoticed in the process.”

“And a loon in a medieval costume’s got a better chance?”

Sherlock’s eyes had that odd, almost spooky look they got sometimes, as though he’d shoved himself on beyond his Mind Palace and into an alien dimension entirely. “Perhaps. Why did you call these people over, Lestrade? What were you going to ask them?”

Lestrade blinked. He’d been so sideswiped by the revelation that Mendez was the man in the costume who’d been just a bit too interested in blades…

Still… He looked at Mendez. “They thought you were nuts about knives, Mr. Mendez. Care to explain that?”

“I’m nuts about knives?” Mendez was the picture of outrage. “ _I’m_ nuts? About knives? Me? Have you _seen_ that lot? They’re like a walking arsenal. Every time you stop to make conversation, one of ‘em’s talking about forging the damned things and another’s on about blade protocol and a third’s just playing suggestively with his dirk. I was _trying_ to fucking play along.” He hunched down, looking pitiful. “I just… I thought….”

“What?”

Mendez looked apologetically up at the DI. “There’s this guy I know. Up in Leeds. He does this sort of thing. I thought… He’s nice, you know? I figured I’d go to this thing they did, eat a few turkey legs, show an interest, sign up for their stupid little club. Learn a bit. Next time I saw Will I could make conversation, y’know? Talk him up.”

Long tall Jeff began to giggle. He pulled up a chair, leaned his arms on the table, and buried his face, laughing. A second later he came up for air, still sniggering. He looked at Mendez. “You poor bastard.  So you’re sweet on this guy?  Will? Is that Will Evetts?” Mendez nodded, mutely. Jeff giggled harder. “God, that man pulls. I swear, he’s got people crushing on him from Lands’ End to John o’ Groats. So you meet Our Will, sexiest minstrel in Pont Alarch, and the next thing you’re climbing into forty pounds of leather and iron and pissing off half of Thamesreach by talking like you’re the next fucking Jack the Ripper.” His head dropped into his arms again, and he drifted into slow, hiccuppy, drunken giggles again.

Mendez stared and him, and seemed to deflate. He sighed, and looked at Lestrade side-eyed, blushing. “That’s about it,” he muttered.

“Good looking sort, this Will?”

“Not so much good looking,” Eric said, sparing Mendez. “Just—he pulls. I mean, send him through an event with a lute in his hand and he comes out the far end of the weekend with a long trail of people trailing after, sighing and singing ‘Greensleeves.’ Ok, I’ll admit, it doesn’t hurt that he looks good in hose and he has the shortest damn doublet. His wife says that stupid thing’s allergic to his bum, and I can believe it.”

“He’s married?” Mendez said, forlornly.

“Fifteen years. Married at eighteen, and never seems to have regretted it a minute.”

Mendez moaned and buried his face in his hands. “What a fucking waste of a Sunday. The only thing worth going for was the damned food, and it was all cinnamon in the gravy and almonds in everything.” He made a face. “Too much like Tia Devorah’s cooking. What, the entire Renaissance was filled with Sephardic Jews?”

Eric laughed so hard he was crossing his legs. Jeff buried his head in his arms again, wailing. Lis glowered. Sherlock looked at Lestrade and said, cheerfully. “And you can now cross that one off the list.”

Lestrade wanted to argue. No one had actually proven Mendez couldn’t be the killer; however, Lestrade agreed—the entire idea seemed increasingly improbable. “Who, then?”

Sherlock turned to the remaining Skadians. “We know what Mr. Mendez wore to the event on Sunday. What were you wearing?”

Eric shrugged. “My usual. Shirt, doublet, leather trews, boots. Baldric to help hold my lute.” He patted the oversized beret on his head. “This.”

“Weapons?”

“They get in the way and scratch the lute.”

Sherlock looked at Jeff, who shrugged. “I usually go as a cleric, but it was a warm day. Robes and vestments can get pretty hot. So I swapped out personas and went as a lower class Roman, contemporary with Da Vinci. Linen drawstring trousers, linen shirt, sash, shoes. Much more comfortable on a hot summer day.”

“Weapons?”

“Peace-tied belt knife. That’s all.”

Sherlock turned to Lis, who huffed. “I’m a female fighter. We usually have to do work-arounds. During the exhibition fighting I was in a gambeson and chain mail. But after all I wore was a tunic with a sash, trews, and boots. Peace-tied belt knife, nothing more.”

Sherlock blinked, for all the world like a cat. “And the boots. Are those the boots you wore yesterday?”

She looked away from him. “They’re not properly period. I usually wear them with my steam cosplay.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Yeah. These are the ones I wore yesterday.”

He nodded. “And the blades? Were they peace tied?”

She slumped. “You guessed. How did you guess?”

Sherlock shrugged. “The boots, as you say, are not period, and while the disguise is excellent, the daggers hidden in the fancy work on the sides of the boots are easy enough to detect if one observes closely. May I?” He gestured lightly toward her boots.

She nodded, and he leaned over. He grabbed one of the ornate medallions at the upper edge of the boot. With a quick pull he drew out a long, thin, double-bladed weapon, sharp on both edges. Until then it had been entirely hidden in the sewn-on leather banding that ran down the side of the boot.

“And I would assume the other is a blade, also?”

She nodded.

“Why didn't you wear the boots you would normally wear?”

She ducked her head. “Eric said these were sexy, once. Most feasts I’m in women’s garb. For this I was a fighter, and I could show off a bit. I…”

“And you didn’t have the blades peace tied?”

“Zip-ties aren’t exactly a look, are they?” she snapped.

“You didn’t plan it. You went to talk to Joey--the singer-- after he left, hoping to convince him not to attempt an audition for an upcoming event Eric was putting together, not knowing he was unlikely to take part in any case. But then you found him with the music Eric had given him, singing. And…”

“It’s not fair,” she said. “He sang…there in the graveyard, under the trees. Like a nightingale, he was. God, even I could have fallen for him.”

Lestrade looked around the table. Jeff and Eric were still too drunk to have processed what Sherlock and Lis had just said. Lestrade wasn’t, though. He said, softly, “I’m going to have to call someone to take you in, Lis.”

She nodded. “I know.” She looked over at Eric, then, eyes sad. “It was so stupid. Eric never noticed me anyway, except to tell me to sing more quietly. I just couldn’t stop caring.” She gave a crooked grin, tears starting down her cheeks. “It wouldn’t have been so bad, except that guy sang so sweetly even I loved him. How do you fight that? What do you do, when you know you have nothing to offer that matches something that beautiful?”

Lestrade shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe—maybe you just have to figure there’s a place for the Little Drummer Boy, too. Pound your drum and hope someday they notice.”

It was almost an hour later before Lestrade and Sherlock left the Artillery Arms, heading for Lestrade’s car on the other side of the Burial Ground.

“It was so dumb,” Lestrade said. “That guy, Joey. He wouldn’t have even gone to audition. Eric wouldn’t have seen him again, and if I have it straight, Eric’s not even gay. Just music crazy.”

“It wasn’t ordinary jealousy,” Sherlock said. “It was envy.”

“For a beautiful voice?”

“Is that any more foolish than to envy a beautiful face, or a beautiful figure?” Sherlock frowned. “It takes both talent and skill to sing beautifully. An accomplishment worthy of envy, I would think.”

“Yeah, but—“

“Donovan would like to stab me for my deductions,” Sherlock said.

“Donovan would like to stab you because you’re a complete dickhead tosser, you stupid berk.”

“Well, that too.” Sherlock conceded, almost cheerfully. Then… “She loved music, too, but couldn’t make it. That’s why she fell in love with Eric. Then Joey came, and all she could see what that he was everything she loved—and couldn’t be. I think if I couldn’t play the violin, I might be tempted to stab someone who played it well.”

“You’re already one murder too far in,” Lestrade said, uneasily.

“Oh, more than one,” Sherlock said, softly. “That’s why Mycroft had me pulled from the field. I was…getting too good at it, and caring about it far too little. The psychiatrists said I was turning myself into a ‘high functioning sociopath’ to do the work.”

“So that’s where you got the term.”

Sherlock shrugged. “They did their research. It seemed a shame to waste their efforts by not using it.”

The shadows under the trees in the burial grounds were dark. The headstones shone like markers, pale in the city-glow that seeped in under the canopy of leaves.

“He’s protecting himself,” Sherlock said. “You were right. He’s the shy one, and he’s afraid. But so was I when you met me. Be…patient. Lure him, the way you lured me.”

“You think it will work?”

“The truth? No. He’s built his defenses high. But I’d have said the same about myself ten years ago. Then you, and then John, changed everything.”

They reached Lestrade’s car. “Drop you at Baker Street?”

Sherlock shook his head. “I think I’ll walk, tonight. Lestrade? Get him out of the office, if you can. On your own turf. Make him look up from that keyboard and see the sky.”

Then he was gone, a shadow slipping through shadows.

 

A Lover’s Desire for his Best Beloved: <http://ebba.english.ucsb.edu/ballad/30138/xml>

“You’re not Irish”: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnHn8jWUTIM>


End file.
